10 responses to “Jarrow Marchers Arrive in London!”

Well done. Against the odds, in the face of appalling national media coverage and despite all the doubters you’ve done it. I’ve followed you all the way via your diaries and I think you’re a credit to yourselves and to young people in general. You’re also a credit to the memory of the original Jarrow Marchers and the Socialism for which they stood which now lives on through you.

Well done to all of you. Over the past month workers and young people across the north-east have been asking how you’ve been getting on. Today I’ve seen the sacked workers from AEI and they are looking forward to seeing you all on Saturday. Have you started making plans for the 80th anniversary of the march?

Dear Brave Young Ones, I was one of the people who met you in Barnet on Wed 2nd November. I felt so privileged to meet you and encouraged by hearing you speak, that I wrote the piece below for you. I’m not very good at putting things online, but I hope that you’ll find room for it here and view it as a tribute to yourselves and all like you.

FROM JARROW AND FROM CLYDE THEY’VE COME!
Last night I met a group of young people, most of whom had walked around 300 miles from a place called Jarrow in the North of England, to London. They were repeating the march of the 200 workers who trekked those same miles in October 1936.

The original Jarrow marchers came to London to protest massive unemployment in the North of England in the midst of the Great Depression of the Thirties. Indeed all over the UK, all over the world, unemployment was obliging workers to take action. Those first marchers might not have imagined the impact which their action and the actions of the rest of the working class in many parts of the world, would have. They might not have imagined the rights won for working men and women everywhere, in the next decades. Certainly, they could not have foreseen the smashing of those rights soon after. They could not have foreseen that in less than a century their grandchildren would once again have to take to the road to protest against massive unemployment, as though nothing had changed.

And yet, the world has changed immeasurably. The world in which these 21st century Jarrow marchers live is one in which humanity has advanced so far in harnessing the Earth’s resources, that it is fully capable of feeding, clothing and housing every man, woman and child on this planet, with plenty to spare. It is a world in which humankind has advanced so far in science and technology, that people can communicate with one another across thousands of miles in an instant – and in little more, can transport food and all the necessities of life from where there is plenty to where there is none. It is a world in which there should be work for all and leisure for all.

The first Jarrow marchers, seeing all that has become possible in this new world, seeing the abundance which blesses this 21st century society, could be forgiven were they to mistake these outward trappings as signs of real civilization. They’d expect to see, alongside the wonders of television, mobile phones, the internet and travel to the moon – the wonder of a fully co-operative human society. A society in which all people work fairly and honestly for the benefit of all, a society whose primary goal is the welfare and well-being of all of humanity, especially its most vulnerable parts. A truly civilized world.

A world which the first Jarrow marchers might well have believed would render a second march from Jarrow to London overwhelmingly redundant. A world in which there is no need for protestors to camp outside St. Paul’s Cathedral. A world in which it is ridiculous for working people, overwhelmingly young people, to protest in a dozen different ways in every country where they can, and even those where they cannot.

Yet they would find that all this action is as necessary now as their march was in 1936. It is necessary because cheek by jowl with massive practical advancement has gone increasing regression from real civilization. This regression is characterised by the growing gulf between a few obscenely rich people, and the overwhelming mass of humanity which grows increasingly impoverished. The insatiable greed of these few, their pursuit of ever greater wealth drives them to thieve trillions from the rest of humanity – trillions they could not possibly use. Trillions that they hoard, waste and destroy, just as they destroy the resources of the earth in their determined drive to amass more and more for themselves. Indeed, just as they threaten to destroy the rest of humanity through climate change and wanton wars bringing in their wake an increase in poverty, starvation and disease.

It is this barbarism of these few which has forced the young people I met last night onto the road followed 75 years ago by their grandparents. The young Jarrow marchers came to London to demand an end to unemployment. They came to demand a restoration of their hard-won rights. They came to prevent the destruction of the welfare state. In doing so, they have declared a just war on bankers and politicians who rob whole countries blind while young people the world over, the heirs of the first Jarrow marchers are jobless, often homeless, often starving.

It is this which would give hope to any of those original Jarrow marchers, should they look upon this 21st century world. The greedy who are determined to lay the Earth waste and destroy or enslave the rest of humanity increasingly find themselves faced with the resistance, epitomized by the young people I met last night. In the words of Harvey Andrews:
“But from Jarrow and from Clyde they come
With silent hearts and muffled drum
We want the cake and not the crumb
We’re mad again.”

You are a credit to yourselves you have inspired thousands of people of all ages including those of us who remember the Thatcher years and what they did back then to ordinary working people, well Cameron and co are doing it all again, they are selling out the future of our young generations and we must stand up to them – congratulations and thanks.

Well done one and all. Something to remember and tell your grandchildren when they take part in Jarrow -150 years on! Big UP! for Alex Moore!..Well done son, we are all proud of you. Take care see you soon. Dad, Mum and G

hi from gary fifield there i a hue problemin the uk going back to the mid eighties and thatcher she was the caused of the of uneplyment politians are outof touch theres a lot of dicrimation out there yuo have no rights to any thing , the uk must teach its work force and consult people stop w\tching our huoses bank account
the jobcentres are out of date yuo no longertoworkyuo buy one .there no grant for college
if do get any quallifaction on benifit they ignore yuo
its to dicicult to get car licence the jobs on offerd dont teach anything of anytechnical value
yuors
original one in ten
ifeel very angery that this starting again

torry party deose not care there jobist
laboure will use yuo
talk the people who kived through mrs thatcher

About Jarrow to London 2011

Youth Fight for Jobs, a campaigning organisation, is marching from Jarrow to London, starting on 1 October 2011. This is on the 75 anniversary of the Jarrow Crusade, when 200 unemployed workers took a similar route to raise awareness of mass unemployment.
Today, as employment and youth unemployment soars, the ConDem coalition axing jobs and services, this new campaign is absolutely vital.
To make it all happen, we are working with the trade union movement and activists to raise £26,000 and organise demonstrations, rallys and protests in every town, city and area that the march visits.
Get in contact on youthfightforjobs@gmail.com or call 020 8558 7947.
For more info on Youth Fight for Jobs, see our website www.youthfightforjobs.com